U.S. Attorney's Office

John Melvin Walker Pleads Guilty to Secretly Owning Pot Clinic Chain and Avoiding Taxes

A San Clemente man pleaded guilty in federal court this morning to secretly owning a chain of nine medical marijuana clinics in Orange and Los Angeles counties. Because John Melvin "Pops" Walker has drug-related priors and was caught with firearms, the 56-year-old was looking at the possibility of l ... More >>

Manuel Diaz Shooting: Case Closed?

Anaheim Mayor Tom Tait met with representatives from the United States Attorney's Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation last summer regarding the incidents of July 21, 2012. Now that the Orange County District Attorney's office has completed and released its investigative letter clearing An ... More >>

Shann Mou Lee Faces Up to 3 Years and Nearly $70k in Penalties For Filing False Tax Returns

Under a plea deal, a Garden Grove business owner who built small electronic airplane parts for C5 cargo planes and F18 fighters copped this morning to tax fraud.Shann Mou Lee, 69, of Buena Park, pleaded guilty to a one-count criminal information charging him with subscribing to a false income ta ... More >>

Feds Sue Owners of 3 Anaheim Buildings with Pot Clinics, Warn Others They May Be Next

"As part of an ongoing initiative against the commercial marijuana industry in California"--a.k.a. two-faced Obama's war on patients for Big Pharma--the feds today filed three asset forfeiture lawsuits targeting Anaheim clinics. "While these marijuana stores purport to be 'medical marijuana dispen ... More >>

Matthew Walker, Whose Family Founded Farmers & Merchants Bank, Pleads Guilty To Stealing Almost $2M From Customer's Account

​A high-profile Orange County banker has pleaded guilty to embezzling almost $2 million from a customer's account at the bank founded by his relatives. Matthew J. Walker, 34, of Orange, stole the money from a customer's account at Farmers and Merchants Bank, where he was vice president and br ... More >>

Hung Van Tieu, 62-Year-Old Costa Mesa Man, Convicted Of Credit Card Fraud, Spent Thousands In Vegas

flickr user photographyyourway​So you've posted bond in the state's pending credit card fraud case against you. What's your next step? Clean up your act? Naw. Steal credit cards and blow cash like crazy in Vegas? That's more like it.Well, a 62-year-old Costa Mesa man did just that. On Thursday, a ... More >>

Christian Rock Concert Promoter Pleads Guilty to Federal Wire Fraud Charge

​Did you hear about the concert promoter who scammed almost $1 million from victims who were told that they were putting their money into Christian rock concerts? No? Well, it's not quite Playground Festival, but Lauren Baumann, 43, the owner and operator of a Downey firm Stewardship Estates, LLC, ... More >>

[UPDATED with Feinstein Fooked!] Kinde Durkee, Democratic Treasurer Accused of Fraud

​UPDATE, SEPT. 13, 11:05 A.M.: U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein is the latest Democrat claiming to have been hornswoggled by campaign treasurer Kinde Durkee. Feinstein first revealed her accounts had been totally cleaned out, but her spokesman later corrected that to say the amount of missing funds is c ... More >>

[UPDATED with Victims Speak:] Luis Mijangos, Sextortion Hacker, Gets 6 Years

​UPDATE, SEPT. 2, 11:04 A.M.: Two victims of Luis Mijangos hacking into dozens of computers to obtain personal data--and in some cases demanding sexually explicit videos from female victims in exchange for not distributing other images--spoke at the undocumented immigrant's sentencing."During to ... More >>

[UPDATED with Defendant's Claims, New Details:] Samuel Martinez Gonzalez Accused of Bringing Teen Girls From Texas to Work for Him as Prostitutes

​UPDATE, AUG. 16, 12:04 P.M.: Through the court affidavit and his appearance before a federal magistrate in Santa Ana Monday afternoon, we now know Samuel Martinez Gonzalez's side of the story that has him facing a maximum sentence of life behind bars if convicted.The 26-year-old Santa Ana man cl ... More >>

Glen Justice, Local Oncologist, Sentenced to 18 Months For Health Care Fraud

​An Orange County oncologist, whose fraudulent health care schemes caused losses of up to $1 million, was sentenced to a year-and-a-half in federal prison yesterday.In a precious paradigm of irony, the 66-year-old doctor who pleaded guilty to five counts of health care fraud is named Glen Justice. ... More >>

[UPDATED with 17 More Swept Up:] 26 Charged with Carrying Out Mexican Mafia Orders in OC Jail

​UPDATE, JULY 14, 5:01 P.M.: Besides the 26 Mexican Mafia members the District Attorney's office is prosecuting as a result of the Orange County Jail crimes uncovered through "Operation Black Flag," 17 Costa Mesa gang members were swept up by federal indictments related to the investigation.The in ... More >>

[UPDATED] Luis Mijangos Guilty of Being Sextortion Hacker

​UPDATE, MARCH 22, 4:46 P.M.: Santa Ana's Luis Mijangos, who had previously pleaded not guilty to 16 federal charges, pleaded guilty Monday to two federal counts related to his tricking about 230 people into downloading a virus that allowed him to hack into their computers, and then extort from th ... More >>

The Feds Bury Border Patrol Abuses of Immigrants

But what's been unearthed reveals a culture of cruelty

[UPDATED:] Matthew Lloyd Crippen Escapes Charges of Illegal Modification of Xbox Consoles

​Update, December 6, 12:07 p.m.: A tip to you budding prosecutors out there: When a judge says, "I really don't understand what we're doing here," your case is in serious jeopardy. That's what U.S. District Judge Philip Gutierrez said last week in Los Angeles before the U.S. Attorney's Office anno ... More >>

Election Monitor Named for People's Republic of Orange County

​An election monitor has been appointed for the People's Republic of Orange County. No, Jimmy Carter isn't coming Tuesday.  Assistant United States Attorney Dennis Mitchell, as he has done before, will serve as the District Election Officer for the Central District of California, which includ ... More >>

Richard Alan Chaney Gets 9 Years for Pulling "Haidl Maneuver" and Other Sex Acts on Teens

​Richard Alan Chaney has been sentenced to nine years in state prison for sexually assaulting 14- and 17-year-old girls he met on MySpace and Stickam.com. The 25-year-old Costa Mesa resident pleaded guilty to oral copulation of a minor under 16, contacting a child with the intent to distribute p ... More >>

Feds Bust Massive OC-Related Ecstasy Pill Ring

DEA agents now have lots of party favors​The price to party without inhibitions in Southern California likely just went up.Federal law enforcement officials announced this afternoon that a grand jury has indicted 15 individuals in Los Angeles and Orange County for conspiracy to possess and distrib ... More >>

Thanh Viet Jeremy Cao Indicted for Allegedly Filing Tax Liens Against Fed Officials, Tax Returns With $20 Billion in Refunds for Himself

​A Rancho Santa Margarita man has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Las Vegas, where he also lives, for allegedly filing 22 false liens ranging from $25 million to $300 million against four federal judges and employees of the IRS, Secret Service, Securities and Exchange Commission and the ... More >>

Gerald M. Shaw, Newport Beach Attorney Convicted in Investment Scheme That Promised 40%-a-Week Rates of Return

​Newport Beach lawyer Gerald M. Shaw pleaded guilty to federal fraud related to a "high-yield" investment scheme that took more than $1 million from victims who were promised rates of return as high as 40 percent a week. The original charges against the 62-year-old, who plucked some victims from ... More >>

National Cardio Labs Settles Whistleblower Suit for $3.6 Million

​An Orange County heart-monitoring service will pay $3.6 million to settle a whistleblower lawsuit that alleged the company defrauded government health care programs, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles announced. National Cardio Labs LLC was based in Santa Ana, Aliso Viejo and then Irvin ... More >>

Luis Mijangos Accused of Hacking Into Hundreds of Computers and Demanding Sex Videos or He'd Spill Females' Personal Info

​After a six-month FBI investigation into his alleged hacking, a 31-year-old Santa Ana man was arrested today on federal extortion charges that he hacked into dozens of computers, obtained personal data about people using the computers, and then demanded sexually explicit videos from girls and w ... More >>

Are You With Me, Dr. Fu? Not So Much

​Xinming Fu, a 48-year-old Irvine physician, has been sentenced to 2 1/2 years in federal prison for his role in a $15 million health care fraud scheme that plied the elderly and mentally ill with candy, doughnuts and cigarettes to get them to undergo unnecessary respiratory treatments that were b ... More >>

[UPDATED AND CORRECTED:] Today's Sentencing for Smuggling Songbirds From Vietnam

UPDATE AND CORRECTION: Changes throughout (see below) . . . Courtesy of U.S. Attorney's OfficeI've heard of chicken legs, but this is ridiculous.​Duc Le of Garden Grove pleaded guilty today to conspiring to illegally bring live Asian songbirds into the United States by attaching them to the legs o ... More >>

Is That An Iguana in Your Leg, Or...

When I began my search for a roommate two months ago, I had no idea of the caliber of people I would find on Long Beach Craigslist. There was the young woman with four stinking cats, the Jesus freak, the bipolar lady with tattoos on her face, and Jereme James, the one-legged construction worker. F ... More >>

OC Conservatives Have Something to Cheer!

On Monday, Orange County conservative activists lost the fight to block liberal law scholar Erwin Chemerinsky from becoming the first UC Irvine law school dean. But this morning must feel better. The United States Attorney's Office based in Los Angeles announced that it has won a guilty plea from Wi ... More >>

No Street Cred

The county's biggest public worker union called on all OC factions -- Republicans, Democrats and all those in-between -- to join them in a countywide recall effort to remove County Treasurer-Tax Collector, Chriss Street, from office. The County's money manager is under investigation by the Orange Co ... More >>

Hammer Time

Ex-Huntington Beach mayor gets prison time for condo scam first unveiled by Weekly

Sorry seems to be the hardest word

Who Killed Col. James Sabow?

Was Marine Corps Col. James Sabow the victim of a military cover-up?